Google has committed $3 million to three human trafficking groups in a bid to build an international helpline network fuelled by data.

Google announced the launch of the Google Global Human Trafficking Hotline Network at an event held by its Google Ideas think tank in Washington. The idea had already been floated last summer by the think tank, and it contributed $11.5 million to the cause in 2011. But this week it has cemented its commitment and brought together NGOs Polaris Project, Liberty Asia and La Strada International.

Between the three of them the groups have the US, Europe and Asia covered, but the task is a massive one. According to the post by Google human trafficking enslaves 21 million people, while stats gathered by the UN's Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking estimate that 2.5 million people are in forced labor at any given time—56 percent of whom are based in Asia. Most of those trafficked are aged between 18 and 24 and 43 percent are forced into the sex trade. Of course, there can be no accurate stats on the industry, so the true figures are perhaps even more devastating. That's why Google wants to bring together groups across the globe, sharing essential data among them all to more effectively target the problem. For instance, every time a call is logged, its location and all the factual data provided by the caller can be logged and analysed as part of a wider web of information, which in turn would reveal emerging patterns of where people are being trafficked or where they're working.